Day from Hell

Thursday afternoon was probably one of the worst. days. EVER.

After boasting about how ready I was for my project to go live, we invited our president and CEO to attend Thursday's weekly meeting for a demo of the wonderment that was created under my supervision. I was a little nervous, but I had gone through my checklist and confident that I have done all I could.

Things were a little shaky from the start. My nerves were showing. Then the first person on the agenda to present was late. No biggie, we'll go on to the demo, then catch up when he gets here. That just started a snowball effect of all the items on the agenda getting all over the place. Without my knowledge, another committee member invited members of the operations department to the meeting as well, from which brought on a bazillion questions. The questions were all very healthy, but, as to not bore you with banky details, spawned MORE questions to implications that I thought I had reconciled, but apparently did not. It became, for lack of a better term, a complete cluster fuck. It felt like my whole project unraveled before me, all the while my boss, the CEO, and CFO watching. The meeting finally ended (an hour later than normal), I got back to my desk, and sort of just sat there in shock. I was certain that I was ready. I didn't know what happened. I felt like I got punched in the stomach. I knew I wasn't an idiot, but I didn't know if they (Exec Management) knew that. The issue was one that I, coming from a retail banking background with no back-office experience, could not have known about unless someone had informed me. It was like, "how am I supposed to know to carry an umbrella when I've never even seen a rain cloud before?"

I came home and could barely speak. I laid on the couch and kept mumbling in a whisper. I got a few tears out, and finally got an appetite enough to cook something for dinner, which got my mind away from work, which allowed me to enjoy the rest of the evening.

I woke up Friday morning with a knot in my stomach. If you read my previous post, you understand how important the success of this project is to me and my career. When I got in the office and opened my email, there was a message waiting for me from my boss. "Let's meet at 9:00." It was about 8:43. I took a deep breath, went over my notes from yesterday's meeting, and met with him. I kept telling myself to keep it together, which probably just made it worse. I sat there while he spoke and just let the tears roll. I was frustrated, embarrassed, and without the right words to express how I felt. The tears and my inability to stop them just got me more frustrated, which caused more tears and embarrassment.
What he had to say was much better than I was expecting to hear. Luckily, it was realized that if I had pulled off this project by myself, that it would've been nothing short of a miracle. SO they decided it be best to move my department (all one of us) to operations, gaining access to the rest of the back-office team for support. It will now be a group effort. This was great news for me. They realized I wasn't an idiot (thank God).

I am sad that I won't be under my current boss anymore. He is a great tell-it-like-it-is kinda guy and I really appreciated him and his guidance. But, I am comfortable with my new boss, however, and look foward to working with him. This new road I'm on feels a lot less bumpy. It may be a bit winding, but at least now i have GPS.